If you have a chick or chicks around this age, she wrote, please let me know.

She was looking for a nesting couple ready to adopt, whether they knew it or not.

• • •

Barb Walker, a coordinator for Audubon chapters in Pinellas County, got the e-mail on Feb. 4. She checked the list compiled by eagle watchers across the county, meticulously updated to note every birth, disappearance and arrival of bald eagles in Pinellas.

Nest No. 20 caught her eye.

It was off a quiet street in Dunedin, atop a 50-foot slash pine in the backyard of a retired municipal worker. It was home to two hatchlings recorded about the time Hoover was found.

It was a match.

• • •

Arno Beken, 57, was still getting to know the family living high in his backyard when Audubon contacted him last week.

The eagle nest was the feature that sold him on the house when he bought it in October.

"I thought it was pretty neat," Beken said. He was all for the adoption. He would soon have one more eagle to watch. He said sometimes he likes to lie on his roof to see the birds soar.

Though the question remained: Would the eagles themselves be so accepting?

• • •

As a small crowd of neighbors and birdwatchers gathered outside Beken's home Monday, professional tree trimmer and Audubon volunteer Jim Lott leaped out of a minivan, grabbed his gear bag and marched toward the objective.

Hoover, snuggled into layered towels, was in a van's cargo area. His name made sense. It was Presidents Day, after all, and President Herbert Hoover had also been an orphan.

But before the now 2.2-pound eaglet could join the nest, Lott needed to make sure that there were two or fewer babies already inside and that they were about the size of Hoover.

"If there's a third, we'll have to call it off," Lott said.

Fratricide, said eagle expert Joan Bringham, happens most often when eagles are young and competition for food is fierce.

• • •

Lott threw a line over a branch just feet underneath the nest. An eagle took flight when it hit. Mom had left the nest.

As Lott made his ascent, dangling, securing lines and maneuvering around branches, the eagle returned, circling and swooping, screaming as the intruder inched toward her babies. She was soon joined by her mate.

Lott arrived. He snapped pictures of the babies in the nest and lowered the camera to White.

She brought the camera to the minivan and looked at Hoover, then his would-be siblings.

"They're three or four days younger," she said. "But we're good to go."

The crowd of about 30 softly cheered and clapped.

Hoover was loaded into a duffel bag tied to a rope and hauled into the treetops. Lott put him in the nest.

• • •

As the sun set, the eagles circled their nest, hesitant to return after the invasion.

Hoover was nestled among his new siblings, though as night fell, he had yet to meet his parents.

White said that in the six bald eagle adoptions her center has performed over the years, there has not been a single rejection.

But there was still a fear.

Before the light completely vanished, one of the eagles alighted onto a branch alongside the nest. Watching.